butterflies, then their interest may lead to the suggestion of informational texts such Nic Bishop’s Butterflies (2011) which has a glossary and photographs. Often media specialists and teachers use student interest to recommend texts to young students. Using a hybrid text, which is a familiar format, may help create a bridge to informational texts they may enjoy.
We want young children to be able to approach various types of text and gain meaning from them. However, we also know that students cannot approach all texts in the same manner. If teachers never use hybrid text to develop scientific knowledge, they will never ensure that students know how to appropriately engage with hybrid text in order to gain information. Reading hybrid text and understanding its structure is a skill that students need to develop.
While clearly there are benefits to teaching with hybrid text, the next question is determining what can be done in the science classroom to ensure appropriate engagement with hybrid texts. How can teachers ensure that the students are getting the most and learning from the text? The following section suggests several ways elementary teachers can do just that.
Ask students how they engage with a story versus their science textbook or a science website. Explain hybrid text may appear to be a story, but there are important facts the author includes in the narrative that can help expand their understanding of a science topic. Use hybrid texts as an opportunity to talk about stance. Readers take different stances when they engage with text. They either seek to become part of the story experience, aesthetically, or they engage efferently, to take away information (Rosenblatt, 1994). The ability to discuss stance and to talk about the differences between how readers engage with various texts is an important benefit of incorporating hybrid texts into the science classroom (Bintz & Ciecierski, 2017).
“Which Is It?” Activity
Encourage students to compare and contrast hybrid, informational texts, and even fictional texts. Do very young students know if a text is hybrid? Divide the class into small groups. Provide each group of students with four or five texts. Ask them to sort the texts into three piles, fiction, hybrid, and informational. Have them put a sticky note on the text piles to label them. After students are done, have them share the books and which ones were in which piles. How did they decide whether or not a text was hybrid or informational? How did they know if a text was fictional or hybrid? Older students may even find their own texts to categorize.
Ask students to work in pairs to find information in a hybrid text on a scientific topic they are studying. Take notes on a chart of scientific information that they find in the texts. With younger students, the text could be read to the class and the entire class can contribute ideas. Talk about what students are able to learn from the text and then look at informational texts that might expand that knowledge on concepts discussed in the hybrid text.
As the class studies a scientific topic or unit, ask students to think about how they might incorporate the information into a hybrid text. What would the title be? What would the story line be about? Ask them to design a dust jacket. On the inside front flap, they can include a brief synopsis of the hybrid text that will grab a reader’s attention so they want to read the text, and on the inside of the back flap of the jacket they can include information about the author. Does the author have any credentials specific to the topic or use any websites for information that might be included? On the back cover, students may list informational texts that tie to the content of this hybrid text. Students can even present a one-minute sales pitch for their text. This activity is another way to get students thinking about various texts and how hybrid texts differ from informational texts.
Recent research examining hundreds of award-winning science trade books questions if any one type of text is unsuitable for science (May, Crip, Bingham, Schwartz, Pickens, Woodbridge, 2019). However, research also shows that children will not be able to learn scientific concepts without informational texts (Pappas, 2006). While informational texts in science are a necessity so that students become familiar with the text structure of texts often used by scientists, expand their knowledge, and build precise scientific vocabulary, there is a place for hybrid texts in the classroom. When teaching science, hybrid texts can supplement the use of informational texts to develop scientific understanding.
Through the use of hybrid texts, students will better understand how texts vary, and they will build text flexibility so that they can appropriately approach and gain information from diverse texts they encounter. The question is not if hybrid texts should play a role in the elementary science classroom but rather how educators can use both hybrid and informational texts to engage students in learning about the world around them.
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butterflies, then their interest may lead to the suggestion of informational texts such Nic Bishop’s Butterflies (2011) which has a glossary and photographs. Often media specialists and teachers use student interest to recommend texts to young students. Using a hybrid text, which is a familiar format, may help create a bridge to informational texts they may enjoy.
We want young children to be able to approach various types of text and gain meaning from them. However, we also know that students cannot approach all texts in the same manner. If teachers never use hybrid text to develop scientific knowledge, they will never ensure that students know how to appropriately engage with hybrid text in order to gain information. Reading hybrid text and understanding its structure is a skill that students need to develop.
While clearly there are benefits to teaching with hybrid text, the next question is determining what can be done in the science classroom to ensure appropriate engagement with hybrid texts. How can teachers ensure that the students are getting the most and learning from the text? The following section suggests several ways elementary teachers can do just that.
Ask students how they engage with a story versus their science textbook or a science website. Explain hybrid text may appear to be a story, but there are important facts the author includes in the narrative that can help expand their understanding of a science topic. Use hybrid texts as an opportunity to talk about stance. Readers take different stances when they engage with text. They either seek to become part of the story experience, aesthetically, or they engage efferently, to take away information (Rosenblatt, 1994). The ability to discuss stance and to talk about the differences between how readers engage with various texts is an important benefit of incorporating hybrid texts into the science classroom (Bintz & Ciecierski, 2017).
“Which Is It?” Activity
Encourage students to compare and contrast hybrid, informational texts, and even fictional texts. Do very young students know if a text is hybrid? Divide the class into small groups. Provide each group of students with four or five texts. Ask them to sort the texts into three piles, fiction, hybrid, and informational. Have them put a sticky note on the text piles to label them. After students are done, have them share the books and which ones were in which piles. How did they decide whether or not a text was hybrid or informational? How did they know if a text was fictional or hybrid? Older students may even find their own texts to categorize.
Ask students to work in pairs to find information in a hybrid text on a scientific topic they are studying. Take notes on a chart of scientific information that they find in the texts. With younger students, the text could be read to the class and the entire class can contribute ideas. Talk about what students are able to learn from the text and then look at informational texts that might expand that knowledge on concepts discussed in the hybrid text.
As the class studies a scientific topic or unit, ask students to think about how they might incorporate the information into a hybrid text. What would the title be? What would the story line be about? Ask them to design a dust jacket. On the inside front flap, they can include a brief synopsis of the hybrid text that will grab a reader’s attention so they want to read the text, and on the inside of the back flap of the jacket they can include information about the author. Does the author have any credentials specific to the topic or use any websites for information that might be included? On the back cover, students may list informational texts that tie to the content of this hybrid text. Students can even present a one-minute sales pitch for their text. This activity is another way to get students thinking about various texts and how hybrid texts differ from informational texts.
Recent research examining hundreds of award-winning science trade books questions if any one type of text is unsuitable for science (May, Crip, Bingham, Schwartz, Pickens, Woodbridge, 2019). However, research also shows that children will not be able to learn scientific concepts without informational texts (Pappas, 2006). While informational texts in science are a necessity so that students become familiar with the text structure of texts often used by scientists, expand their knowledge, and build precise scientific vocabulary, there is a place for hybrid texts in the classroom. When teaching science, hybrid texts can supplement the use of informational texts to develop scientific understanding.
Through the use of hybrid texts, students will better understand how texts vary, and they will build text flexibility so that they can appropriately approach and gain information from diverse texts they encounter. The question is not if hybrid texts should play a role in the elementary science classroom but rather how educators can use both hybrid and informational texts to engage students in learning about the world around them.
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